Snapshots
by Starshinedown
Summary: If it is in facing life's big moments that we discover what we are made of, then it is the small, subtle moments of our lives that build the foundations of who we are to become. An Esme story in four parts. Pre-Twilight, in canon.
1. Sister, Mother

**a/n: As I was trying to write my Smut Monday contribution over Christmas break, and decided on Esme/Carlisle smut, Esme settled down in my brain and wouldn't leave. So I wrote a short one-shot, thinking I'd exorcise her that way. I was mistaken. It has taken four one-shots; snapshots of Esme's life before Twilight.**

**All four parts are already written, so there won't be much wait between. Yes, I'm still working on My Love Shall Ever Live Young, no worries.**

**THANK YOU to Pogurl for the beta-work and suggestions and to edwardzukorocks/angel for the input and encouragement. You two are awesome.**

**As ever, if it's copyrighted by someone already then it does not belong to me. Twilight and the Twilight characters belong to Stephanie Meyer and Little, Brown.  
**

**And so, I present to you part one of Snapshots.**

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**Sister, Mother**

It is one of the few clear memories of my life as a human. Most memories are fuzzy at the edges and dim in content. Reflections and shadows rather than clear recollections. My parents are faces in silhouette, voices with no anchor. I only know what they looked like because of a family photograph Carlisle brought me from my parent's home after he changed me. My husband is unfortunately clear; it pains me that the strong memories of his abuse stay while the face of my mother faded with the fire of transformation.

Mary, though, I remember with crystal clarity. It's strange what your brain latches on to and holds.

At thirteen, I watched my neighbor, Mary, take care of her little brother, who was three years younger than I. Mary was my role model, one of the friends I had that my father approved of whole-heartedly. She was an honest, genuine girl who grew too old to play in the dirt with me and the boys and then too old to play dolls and house with me (though in truth, those games were always her idea; my preference was to be outside with the boys). Seventeen, Mary had been spending more and more time with her mother and aunts, embroidering linens, piecing quilts, and trimming aprons to fill her hope chest.

Mary was a proper young woman.

Mother said that Mary was so proper because she had to help her mother raise her five younger brothers. This made no sense to me, as I was regularly used by my aunts and uncles to care for my younger cousins, all who lived fairly close by. I was definitely not proper. Father made note of that regularly.

I watched Mary console her brother Peter, wiping the angry tears from his cheeks, patting his head in a comforting manner, and I had a flash of insight: Mary was as much Peter's mother as their actual mother. Moreso, perhaps. It was Mary that Peter ran to when their brothers ganged up on him, Mary that Peter sought out for advice on what to give the little girl he had a crush on, Mary who mediated the many fights her brothers had.

I watched Mary and Peter, uncomfortable with such tenderness. My impulse was to run off and shove their brother, Matthew, the reason Peter was crying, into the mud pit that'd formed under the pines after yesterday's rain.

No, definitely not proper.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "Peter, if you want, I'll go push Matthew-"

"Esme," Mary interrupted, "come sit with us. Let Will and Wes take care of Matthew. What Peter needs now is sisters. He has plenty of brothers."

It sounded like the kind of thing my mother would say.

Grudgingly, I sat down with the eldest and youngest of the Smythe clan and put my head on Peter's lap and my arms around his small frame. I felt his still small hands petting my hair and then felt his breathing begin to calm.

"You see, Esme, this is what sisters can do. Women. Calm and soothe and make right. Vengeance is for men."

And an idea flickered in my thirteen year-old mind. I understood that I didn't have to actually _be_ a mother to offer the comfort and safety a mother should offer.

After that, my role with my younger cousins changed. I still romped in the woods and fields with them, but it was me, not our mothers and aunts, that they ran to for comfort and hugs and love. I dispensed advice. I dressed scraped knees and mediated fights (though I still occasionally took retribution into my own hands).

And so when I woke up from the torturous fire and met Carlisle and Edward as a vampire, there was no part of me that balked at calling Edward "brother." He was younger than I in absolute and in physical years. Adopting him as the sibling I'd never had was easy. I had learned many years before that all little brothers needed sisters to understand them as perhaps mothers cannot, that there is a good deal of mothering involved in being a good older sister.

Because of Mary, I know this. And she is among the clearest of my human memories.

When Edward returned to us, eyes red and full of remorse, I thought of Mary, how she sat with Peter and soothed his hurt. The image flashed into my my mind and Edward frowned at me.

"This isn't a skinned knee or wounded feelings, Esme. I'm not your son, and I'm not a small child to coddle. I killed people. Many people. I thought I was God."

His face was stony and smooth and I could see the rage and regret and guilt clawing at his soul. His words said "stay away," his posture said "I hate myself," and his face said "I am not worthy of your love, your compassion, your open arms."

I knew the look on his face better than I knew almost anything; it was the same expression I wore for the years I was married as a human, the expression I wore for some time after Carlisle changed me.

I knew that look, and I grew past it. Edward could, too, if he would allow it.

"I'm always here for you Edward." _My brother, the man I wish my son could've grown into. I am not your mother, I am not Elizabeth. This is true. But I am your sister. Fate and love and Carlisle made us siblings. My arms are always open, should you need them. You are worthy. We both are._

His stone face rippled and he turned on his heel, walking into another room. But I knew he heard me, and he knew I was there.

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**Reviews are almost as nice as pretty sparkly things. Lemme know what you think!**


	2. Rising

**This part was inspired by "By The Skin of Her Teeth" by the Jennifer Nettles Band**

**_Oh just ask, 'cause she is a giver_**

**_oh just ask, she'll stand and deliver_**

**_(just ask) she'll be here much longer, and she will be stronger than you'll know. _**

**_Stronger than you'll ever know._**

**To Pogurl for the beta-work and suggestions and edwardzukorocks/angel for the encouragement and input: Thank you.**

**As ever, if it's copyrighted by someone already then it does not belong to me. Twilight and the Twilight characters belong to Stephanie Meyer and Little, Brown.**

**May I present to you part two of Snapshots.**

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**Rising**

I was alone for a long time. People were in my life, certainly—my parents, my cousins, our neighbors, my husband, my girlfriends—but after I married, I was alone. The friends of my youth were married, too, our weddings were occasions for family and friends to gather in shared community, for our parents to lament on how quickly daughters grow up to leave their parents for a husband, for them to collectively look forward to grandchildren and the next generation.

My wedding wasn't a particularly joyous occasion for me. I was a pretty bride. My father gave me away, my mother cried.

I did, too.

My tears weren't tears of joy. I was not in love with my husband, but I hoped that I would come to find love in him as my mother had come to love my father as they had grown together in marriage. They provided a positive example of what could happen when two people worked together in the age-old dance of man and woman. I looked forward to a time when I was excited to see my husband come home from a hard day's work and not afraid to see him, as I was on my wedding night.

My hopes came crashing down around me within months. My husband was not my father. My father had, on very, very rare occasion, raised his hand to my mother. He had lived by the rule, with his children, of "spare the rod and spoil the child." In every instance of disciplinary violence his punishment was earned; we knew it was coming, and what infraction had garnered it.

My husband was not my father. I never knew what would cause him to hit me, how I could please him. Dinner was too hot, too spicy, not as good as his mother's had been. I missed a spot on the baseboards when I scrubbed them. I let my eyes linger on one of the men in town. I didn't please him in bed. I was worthless.

There came a time when I stopped talking to my mother or my old friends about what was happening. At the time I thought they just did not understand. I realize, with the clarity of perfect hindsight and greater maturity, they willfully would not see what was plain as day, would not challenge the sanctity of marriage because my husband was heavier with his hand than was strictly sanctioned. I saw them less and less.

My friends became pregnant. Babies became all anyone could talk about. I was both envious of my friend's families, their children, and grateful I was not yet pregnant myself. Would my husband treat his child as he treated his wife? Would my son or daughter also learn that he or she was not worth the food he bought for us?

I hoped a child would change him.

I hoped I was barren.

I hoped for escape. But I was not foolish enough to believe it would come. This was my life, the trials I was to endure.

When I realized I was pregnant, it took me a week to process the information. Did I tell my husband so that he would direct his blows to other parts of my body, to protect the life inside of me? Did I keep it to myself and let him bruise my abdomen in hopes that he'd force my body to abandon this new life?

I told him.

He kept his hands, his belt, his fists, off of my middle. He bragged to all who would listen that his son was growing within me, and he'd teach his son to be just like him.

And my choice was made for me. I would not raise a child in a home such as this. I would run. I would lie to my child. Tell him or her that I was a widow; give a good reason for being a mother on her own. Run to someplace where no one knew me.

I wound up in Ashland, far from what had been home.

My son died. That tiny life, new to the world, died. The one _good_ thing in my life, gone.

Living was a burden I could not bear. The cliffs were an easy option. Surely they could not hurt me any more than my husband had. Already I'd suffered broken bones, bruises, beatings. What were the cliffs when compared to my husband's tender ministrations?

I did not die from the cliffs. Though I was not quite conscious when they brought my battered body to the morgue, though they mistook me for dead, I knew enough to realize I'd failed in my attempt, and to think I must indeed be pathetic if I failed to end my life. My husband was right. I truly was incompetent and unworthy.

Then I was saved from myself.

Carlisle taught me that Love, capital "L" love, the kind I read about in story books as child, does indeed exist.

I went to my husband's funeral.

Carlisle and Edward offered to come with me. They were the first members of my family. They had seen me as I had been, conditioned by my husband, thinking I was worthless. Of course they would offer. But it was something I needed to do for myself.

If I had aged naturally, I would have been in my mid seventies. But I had been frozen at twenty-six for almost fifty years, perpetually looking like the woman who had jumped off the cliffs.

Though my body was frozen in time, my mind and heart were not. How could they remain as they were? I learned so much from Carlisle's great compassion and control; our mutual desire to leave gentle, kind footprints in the world served as a foundation in my endeavors. Rosalie's inner fire reminded me of my own; I reconnected to the girl I'd been, the girl who had wanted to move West in an adventure of teaching on the newly tamed frontier. Emmett's jovial hugs, games, and joy of life had me climbing trees again. Edward was my brother/son, with a special place in my heart that no one else could touch. Jasper's courage in changing so completely from the violent life he had known for over a century gave me inspiration. In Alice, I learned to appreciate the present. Her gift of foresight reminded me to cherish the time I currently lived in. She seemed always to live in the future, my dancing sister/daughter, while our Edward and Jasper lived so much in the guilt of the past. From them, too, I learned the value of _now_.

It was in a talk with Edward, shortly before Rosalie joined our family, that I forgave myself for wishing my husband would die on the front during the Great War.

Jasper and I were outside of St. Louis, walking along the Mississippi, talking about Maria and his experiences in the human and vampire wars, when I forgave myself for the death of my baby.

I learned that the loss of a child never goes away, but that with time and love the loss becomes something you can live through.

I learned that a husband never need raise his hand to his wife. I learned that the joy found in family comes in many forms, as does family. My true family, they who love me for me and not for who I might have been or who they wish I would be is the family I have chosen. We are not tied together by blood but by something far greater.

I learned that I am, indeed, worthy of the love of my incredible husband, and of those who I call my siblings and children.

The six members of my family, my family of choice and love, molded me, challenged me, encouraged me to rise up to my potential.

And I live.

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	3. Resurfacing

**a/n: **

**Thank you thank you to pogurl and edwardzuko/rocks. Y'all are awesome.  
**

**As ever, if it's copyrighted by someone already then it does not belong to me. Twilight and the Twilight characters belong to Stephanie Meyer and Little, Brown.**

**May I present to you part three of Snapshots.**

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**Resurfacing**

The air hums.

I can feel it, the vibrations of the invisible bits that comprise air, charging the air around us.

When they brought me in for my broken leg, I felt this. At the time I thought it was the shot of whiskey my uncle had given me to take the edge off the pain. I thought it was the embarrassment of having fallen out of a tree at my age, too old to have been in a tree to begin with.

I thought it was anything _but_ the amazingly beautiful doctor in that Columbus hospital. People, even doctors, even stunning doctors with magnetic eyes, did not make the air hum, vibrate, _live_. So I told myself it was the whiskey.

I know better now.

Alone, neither of us do this, make the air hum. Together, the air around us is ignited.

We are on our parlor floor, a most improper place for what we are doing now, but we are alone and no one is expected to come over—we do not invite humans into our home, as a rule. There is no reason to unnecessarily test my control.

When we first began our passionate kisses, Carlisle suggested we move to the floor to avoid damaging the antique sofa, and he had, with a brilliant smile at my nod of agreement, gently placed a pillow beneath my head for comfort.

I feel ridiculous and silly and risqué and wonderful. This is heaven.

My wool skirt and slip are pushed up almost around my hips as Carlisle licks and nips and caresses with his lips along the inside of my thighs. Carlisle's worship of my legs thrills me, excites me, and makes me a little self-conscious; before, in my human life, sex was just sex. It was an act of procreation at best, and in my former marriage, it was an act of dominance, an act in which I had little or no choice. I was expected to lay there and do as my husband directed. There was no passion.

Not for the first time, I curse the stubbornness with which the less pleasant experiences of my human life linger. The specifics are hazy, but I am positive my husband never caressed and loved my body as Carlisle does. Early on in my relationship with Carlisle, I was wary of intimacy at best. I'm still not always sure how to handle such a physical manifestation of his adoration and love.

I enjoy this, but it makes me nervous all the same.

I wish that the wonderful experiences with Carlisle would wash away the unhappy ordeals that imprinted themselves on my psyche.

I am moving forward, but it is not fast enough for me. Carlisle and I have negotiated the waters of a relationship, we understand each other better. Finally declaring our love was a step forward. Making love, every time we are together, is another step forward. I can recognize it as making love and not as the old act of dominance and power; Carlisle is careful with me, so careful, handling me as though I were made of porcelain and not unbreakable marble.

But I know it's not my body he's worried about damaging.

And so he continues worshiping my body, licking and nipping his way down my inner thigh, to the sensitive skin at the back of my knee—upon which I giggle because it tickles—to a steady and tingling study of my calf and shin and ankle and foot.

He switches to the other leg and leaves a trail of kisses and caresses from my foot to my knee. He skims over my wool skirt and pauses over the juncture of my legs. "You smell divine," he whispers before lifting his head and bringing his intense gaze to bear on me. Golden gaze meets golden gaze.

In Carlisle's face I see my present: our little family of three, the vampire I love as a mate and the vampire I've taken into my heart as both brother and surrogate son.

In Carlisle's face I see my future. I see him helping me to overcome my fears and my anger and to be a better person. I see myself standing by his side, supporting him even as I learn, as I have the education and career I always wanted but was always denied.

He has done so much more with this immortal life, with no guidance other than his conscience. There is so much we can do together.

I wonder if he sees in my face what I see in his, because he quickly, so quickly only a vampire could follow the movement, brings his body up over mine to catch my lips in a fierce kiss.

I match his intensity, and our kiss is searing. I half expect us to combust from the heat and the passion. My husband's tongue teases me, and I latch onto it, sucking gently before I release it and he devours my mouth and lips again. He's pushing my head deep into the pillow under me with the power of our kiss, and I wonder if we will inadvertently damage the floor. We've had to replace our bed once already.

He groans into my mouth when he feels my fingers digging into his back, shredding his shirt and leaving long scratches on his cold marble skin. I quash the vague sense of shame I feel at this small act of violence. Even now, I have the idea that I should just be passive. It was not so long ago that I was terrified of doing anything at all when we made love.

I am certainly responding to him now. His kiss has moved from my mouth to my jaw to my neck and I am arching against him at the same time that I'm pulling him into me with the great strength only one of our kind has. He moans when I peel the tattered remains of his shirt from him and my fingers ghost over his shoulders, up his neck, and sink into his hair, pulling his head back to my hungry lips.

"Esme." My name falls from Carlisle's mouth, and it is clear to me that it is a prayer of thanks to the almighty for His intervention, for allowing us to meet and connect and become part of each other's lives. I hear him say his most profound prayers of thanks in that exact voice.

I smile up at him and I can feel that my whole face is alight. "I love you," I whisper.

"And I you," he returns.

His attention is again on my neck and collarbone. I feel him pause and kiss the pearl necklace I wear. It was his gift to me a month after we first declared our love to one another; I wear it frequently, always smiling at the memory of his eager, loving expression when he presented this gift to me. Now that I am adjusting to this life, I can truly appreciate my Carlisle's incredible generosity of spirit.

"Esme, my love, how dear to you is this blouse?" He's fingering the collar of the cotton, and as far as I can see, he seems worried that he'll destroy it.

I smile shyly at him. "It is not so dear to me, Carlisle. I have others."

My love's face lights up, and I am reminded of the first time I saw Mr. Edison's light bulb. The cotton parts under his hands as though it were no stronger than tissue. Oh, so he was not worried about damaging my blouse. He was planning on it! My undergarments are visible to him now and he grins cheekily at me, then rips those, too, from my body.

"I did rather like those, however," I pout at him.

His lips are already on the smooth hard skin of my chest, his hand massaging my right breast while he kisses the underside of my left, gently sucking on the supple flesh there. "You taste so sweet," he moans against my skin. I can feel that my nipples are high, tight, hard, under his care.

This worship of my body is amazing. With every gentle kiss and caress I feel something in my head, in my heart, shift. My fears are slowly losing ground. My old self, the self of whom I have mostly hazy memories from before my marriage, is resurfacing.

I missed her.

His lips and hands travel down the marble skin of my stomach, and I gasp when he begins to kiss along the waistband of my skirt, teasing the skin there, eliciting a belly-deep moan from me.

I'm embarrassed by this, and it must show in my body language, because Carlisle pauses and smiles at up at me from where he his now resting his chin on my lower stomach. "Don't be embarrassed my mate, my love."

I smile as best I can at him. "I am trying."

He smiles reassuringly at me. "I know." He begins gently kissing along the skin at the edge of the waistband. Once I am again relaxed, he glances up at me again. "And this?" With his fingertip he raises the patterned wool fabric from my skin.

I smile at him. "I would like to keep this intact, my love. Be gentle."

He nods his acceptance and finds the seam to carefully, so carefully, undo the buttons that hold the skirt to me. He begins to slide it and the delicate slip under it down my hips, which I lift up so that he can slide the two articles of clothing down my legs.

I am nearly bare before him, and I know that if I had the blood to do so, it would be rushing to my skin to create a mottled red pattern across my body. I am so exposed and vulnerable right now. I want to run. The old Esme, she who I once was, wants to stay and enjoy and participate.

I listen to her. I stay. I force my body to release the tension it has been holding.

He quickly sheds his belt and slacks and we two are separated only by our thin undergarments. In a burst of gumption, I wink at him—to his obvious delight and great surprise—and then he is bare to me, the cotton small clothes mere scraps on our couch.

Carlisle's smile nearly takes over his face. Rarely do I take such initiative in our lovemaking. He lowers himself so that he can taste the skin of my stomach. Once there, he kisses and nips and sucks at me, working down the last remaining barrier between us. Reaching the edge of the offending cloth, I feel him take advantage of the razor-sharp teeth nature has armed him with, and slice through it with no effort.

There we are. Two creatures naked before each other in body and in soul.

I am content. Happy. In love. Loved. Cherished. Protected.

Complete in myself for the first time in many years, Carlisle complements me so well that we are seamless in our joining, physically and emotionally.

Esme, the girl-woman I was, the part of me that had hidden under the heavy hand of my husband, is once again dreaming of adventure and love.

I'm glad to have her back.

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	4. A Moment in Time

**a/n: This is the final piece in the series. I hope you've liked it.**

**If you're looking for more Esme storyline, Bethaboo is working on a pre-Twilight in-Canon story on Esme titled _Eve, The Apple of My Eye_. If you aren't already reading it, I recommend doing so.**

**I present to you part four of Snapshots**

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**A Moment in Time**

Rose and I pretend we are human, and can sleep.

Her head is on my lap where I stroke her golden hair gently, smoothing errant strands from her forehead. I'm relaxed against the headboard of the bed I share with Carlisle, my legs stretched out in front of me and my head tilted back to rest against the dark cherry wood. We are in soft, comforting night clothes and the radio hums in the living room below us, softly filling the air with the sound of the A&P Gypsies.

Carlisle and Edward have taken Emmett hunting tonight. The newest member of our family had been ecstatic about going hunting with 'God' and his 'older younger brother,' much to Edward's irritated amusement. Emmett has accepted our life far more easily than the rest of us did when we were first changed. He has been so easy for me to take in as an errant, eager son. I was twenty, and human, when he was born; he could be.

Edward tells me Emmett plots to get me to climb a tree soon. He'd greeted the tale of my initial meeting of Carlisle with a booming laugh and a confession of admiration for the girl I'd been, the girl who'd been climbing trees at sixteen, an age when I should have been at home helping my mother. It comes as little surprise to me that he wants to get me in a tree again.

With the men gone, the house is quiet. Peaceful.

With the men gone, Rose and I try to ignore our nature and pretend we are human.

We are two damaged women, both in different stages of healing, in a house full of men who we love and who love to aggravate us.

Wonder fills me because the simple act of caressing Rosalie's hair is so soothing, because I appreciate her presence here so very much, because I cherish the trust she shows me by placing her head in my lap and just letting go.

I close my eyes and let the darkness I see behind my lids absorb all my attention until I am almost able to leave the turbulent thoughts of my brain behind. This is as close to sleep as I am capable of, now.

Humans do not, can not, appreciate what a profound gift sleep is. The respite of a solid night's sleep is a waking dream for me at times.

In a house with one newborn vampire, another who is still coming to terms with her immortal fate, and yet another who has angrily resigned himself to his own immortality, these moments of calm are precious.

So I smile into the darkness of closed eyes and a shared need to pretend, and enjoy the quiet.

Some time later I feel her shift. Her shoulders tense in the way that they do when she talks about her change, our immortality, our odd-numbered family.

"He should've let me die," she whispers. "He had no right."

It is an old thought, one she used to voice in anger and rage and directly in the face of Carlisle, who so often wore expressions of guilt, sadness, and regret when she raged at him. I have a certain amount of sympathy; it is not a life I would have chosen. Given the option, I know all of us would have chosen the normal path of life and death.

I continue to run my hands over her soft hair, offering what comfort I am able. A few years have passed since Carlisle and Edward found her, battered and bloody and barely alive in the street, and she is still processing her fate. I know that her violent loss of innocence is as much a source of her rage as her unhappy transition into immortality.

It is not the first time Rosalie has said these words. It is, however, the first time she's said them since Emmett joined us.

I keep my voice as low and soothing as I can make it; I want to make it clear what I am about to say is not an accusation. Coming from Edward, it would have been. Even voiced by Carlisle, she might have taken it as such. But we understand each other in a different way, so I hope that she will hear not only my words, but my intention behind them.

"You could not let Emmett die," I say quietly.

Rosalie's entire body stiffens. "It's not the-"

There is a long pause.

She brings her hands up to cover her face and her body convulses into a tear less sob. "It _is_ the same. I didn't change him, but I caused him to be changed. I'm just as selfish as Carlisle." She brings her knees up to her chest and rocks back and forth on her side as she cries the dry cries of our kind.

I fold myself over her and allow my embrace to comfort her as it can.

"Selfish, perhaps," I murmur. "Perhaps even wrong, to bring others into this life. But Rosalie, my daughter, this life brought Carlisle and I together, allowed you to find Emmett, and joined us as a family. It is not all bad." I rock with her, hoping the gentle movement will soothe as I doubt my words will.

She takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly.

"I miss crying," she whispers, almost soundlessly. "I would feel so much better if I could just cry, truly cry. I never understood how much good it could do until I couldn't anymore."

"Sleep," I say in a sympathetic voice. I know just what she means. "Sleep is what I miss the most about being human. You can escape so much in sleep."

Her voice is small, vulnerable. "Can we go back to pretending, Esme?"

"Of course dear."

I've learned that it is in these little moments that we forge our bonds as family members and loved ones. They are precious slices of time.

So Rose and I try to ignore our nature and pretend we are human.

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